


And the Cards All Fold

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Good Hunting [20]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-18 23:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12398553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Supernatural, author's choice, Hell Is Empty."Team Mitchell McKay hunts a pair of yellow-eyed demons.Featuring Cameron Mitchell dressed as John Crichton, unabashed virgin Lorne, and Dean unaccustomed to being the ugly one.





	And the Cards All Fold

“Ship back out again?” Rodney asked. “Why?”

Mitchell waggled his phone. “Orders from Central Command. New hunt.”

“But we just got done with one,” Rodney protested.

Lorne tried to peer over Mitchell’s shoulder, which was hilarious, because he was shorter. “What kind of hunt?”

“Demon,” Mitchell said.

Rodney wheeled on Sam and Dean. “A demon? I thought you two locked them up good and tight.”

“We did,” Dean said.

“Looks like you didn’t.”

“We didn’t lock Hell,” Sam said. “We don’t know how to do that. But once Lucifer and Michael were locked in the Cage, it was game over. Cut off the head, kill the snake.”

“Sounds like Hell is a bit of a hydra,” Rodney said.

Dean started toward him. “It’s not like _you_ were doing anything about it.”

Sam grabbed his arm.

Rodney turned a spectacular shade of red, and immediately Dean realized his misstep. While he and Sam had been dealing with demons and archangels and hell, Rodney had been dealing with the death of his sister.

“Everyone shut up!” Miko shouted. They were standing in the garage of the Bunker after having just arrived home from a ghoul hunt.

Dean was still feeling pretty raw about it. It had involved a half-brother he and Sam had never known about, from Dad’s crazy days before he wised up and settled down and let them be weekend hunters so Sam and Dean could have stable lives and childhoods.

“Orders are orders,” Miko said. “There’s a demon on the loose. First one to stick its head topside since that massive anti-demon push. Are we going to handle it or not?”

Dean was startled by Miko’s insistence about orders. Since she and Rodney were scientists and civilians first, they both tended to chafe when Mitchell trotted out the party line about orders.

“Why isn’t O’Neill’s team taking this one?” Rodney asked.

Miko checked her phone. “Because they’re tracking a different demon.”

“So this one _isn’t_ the first one topside,” Rodney said.

Miko rolled her eyes at him. “They both escaped Hell together. Whatever.”

“We could reload our go bags and hit the road,” Lorne said. “I did enough laundry the last time we were here that we should have enough clean clothes to see us through. But when we get back, it’ll be all hands on deck to get through all the laundry.”

Miko and Mitchell nodded. Rodney made a face - he hated doing laundry - but Sam nodded as well. Dean sighed, nodded.

“Then switch out your clothes. Rendezvous here in thirty,” Mitchell said. He handed his bag to Lorne. “Can you get mine? I’ll go gas up the bus.”

Lorne nodded and shouldered Mitchell’s duffel, headed into the Bunker. Given that Lorne and Dean were the same rank (though Lorne had more time in grade and official seniority over Dean on the team), that kind of task was more rightfully left to Sam, who was the lowest-ranking member of the team (still a cadet, a 2L now). Granted, Lorne and Mitchell had known each other in flight school and at the Academy, were the same age, plus Lorne was an artist, so if any guy was going to be picking your clothes for you, it might as well be the guy who wouldn’t make you look ugly.

Dean looked the best in his uniform, though. Not only were Marines the most badass, but they had the best dress uniform. He headed to his room, dumped his dirty clothes out of his go-bag and onto his bed (he’d sort them into laundry hampers later - Lorne had strict rules about those) and grabbed a fresh set of clothes: one week’s worth of civvies, a couple of uniforms, two weeks’ worth of underwear.

He switched out the books he was reading, too. Sure, the team had community Kindles for all, for recreational as well as hunt-related reading, but Dean liked to hold comics in his hands. Comics just weren’t the same on a screen.

Demons were daring to stick their damn noses out of Hell again. After everything Sam and Dean had gone through, fighting Azazel, losing their father, staving off Michael and Lucifer and the end of the world, and demons were back. After Sam had bucked Lucifer, the demons had been cowed, had been quiet.

But it always came back to demons, didn’t it?

Colonel O’Neill’s little boy, possessed by a demon, tried to kill his wife, and O’Neill had failed to save both of them. Jackson, his wife possessed by a demon, on a rampage with her new demon husband at her side while a newly-assembled team scrambled to take them down, because demons with their hands on nukes was a terrible, terrible thing.

Mom had made a deal with a demon to save Dad. Dad had made a deal with a demon to save Dean. Dean had made a deal with a demon to save Sam. Sam had given his body to a demon of the highest order, a fallen archangel, to save the world.

When Dean arrived at the garage, Mitchell was just pulling the bus back into its usual parking spot.

They piled onto the bus and stowed their gear. As Sam and Dean were brothers, they got to share the double bunk in the back. Miko and Rodney, as civilians, were in the two middle bunks, so they had a modicum of privacy and also so they were well-protected. Mitchell and Lorne shared the double bunk up front, the one that was made from the little dining booth being rearranged. Given that Lorne was short and Mitchell was tall, they seemed to fit together pretty all right.

Dean kinda liked having Lorne as one of his driving partners. Lorne never complained about the music Dean wanted to listen to, he was good at navigating and giving directions, and he didn’t feel the need to fill silences with awkward chatter, the way Rodney did. Miko just kind of chattered endlessly, but she was so cheerful and her voice was soft and sweet, so it made for nice background noise. Dean could fall asleep to it. Mitchell’s southern drawl sometimes made Dean sleepy too, but as a trained soldier, Mitchell was also skilled in the art of purposeful silence.

War was a lot of hurry up and wait, so Dad had said, so Mitchell and Lorne had said. Sometimes you had to wait in silence. An in-drawn breath at the wrong time could spoil an ambush.

Dean knew that from hunts, if not from other combat.

He wondered what Dad would have thought, about Dean and Sam being professional hunters, about the military paying their way through school so they could hunt full-time.

Dean wondered what Mom would have thought, when she’d fought so hard for her family to have a normal, non-hunting life.

Dean climbed into the driver’s seat, and Lorne rode shotgun, a GPS map pulled up on Dean’s phone, which was plugged into the sound system so Dean could have his own music and also directions.

Miko, Rodney, Mitchell, and Sam clustered up behind them, Miko sitting cross-legged between the front seats since she was the only one who would fit.

“What kind of demon are we looking at? Standard black eyes? Crossroads demon gone rogue?” Dean asked.

Miko had her laptop open on her lap, so she had Rodney, Sam, and Mitchell peeking over her shoulders.

“Yellow-eyed demon,” Miko said.

Sam’s head snapped up. Dean glanced over his shoulder, caught Sam’s gaze momentarily.

“Do we have a name?” Sam asked.

“The demon’s human host is female.” Miko scanned the mission brief Central Command had emailed to her. “Got a photo. She’s set up shop in Vegas.”

“That’ll be nice for you, huh, Dean?” Sam asked, trying to keep his tone light.

Vegas was practically Disneyland. Booze, women, and gambling as far as the eye could see. On any other hunt, Dean would have been thrilled.

“What’s she doing setting up shop in Vegas?” Mitchell asked.

“She’s leading her very own cult,” Miko said. “Qetesh, the fertility goddess. Which means - orgies.”

“Isn’t this pretty much your dream hunt?” Rodney asked Dean, and Dean knew the pointed barb for what it was.

“Maybe if the demon didn’t have yellow eyes,” Dean said.

“Not so dreamy a prospect.” Sam’s tone was grim. “People are dying at her orgies. In droves. Drugs. Sex. Booze. They’re poisoning themselves or starving themselves or dehydrating themselves. The party starts and doesn’t stop till people are dead, and then she moves on.”

Lorne glanced over his shoulder. “How are the local police _not_ onto her?”

“They are,” Miko said. “They just think she’s some kind of drug dealer. Her parties are roving, invite only. What cops they’ve sent in there haven’t come out alive.”

“So they’re gunning really, really hard to get her,” Dean translated. A heavy local law enforcement presence would make things very complicated.

“They are,” Miko confirmed.

“What do we know about Qetesh?” Mitchell asked. “Anything in the lore surrounding her ancient cults and worship that could be useful?”

“Jackson sent over everything he knew off the top of his head, which is - quite a lot, because it’s Jackson and it’s Ancient Egypt,” Miko said. She hummed under her breath, skimming the rest of the brief.

“Just looking at that gives me a headache,” Mitchell muttered.

Lorne reprogrammed Dean’s phone so directions weren’t for Central Command in Colorado Springs but for Las Vegas. Even though Dean had driven the highways and byways of America all his life and, once he was outside of a town, could get to pretty much any major city he wanted, protocol dictated they use directions on someone’s GPS map and stick to major routes wherever possible.

While they were covert, what they were doing wasn’t technically illegal.

They were just totally hosed and had no backup if they got caught.

“Qetesh isn’t just one goddess - she’s a bunch of goddesses melded into one from cultural drift over time,” Miko said. “It happens when they’re that old.”

“She’s a melding of all the same type of goddess, though,” Sam said. He was probably reading over her shoulder. “Sex and fertility, war and hostility. Symbols include serpents, Venus, and lions.”

Mitchell read, “She is called Mistress of all the Gods, Lady of the Stars of Heaven, and Eye of Ra Without Equal. She is sometimes the consort of Ba’al Hadad.”

Sam swore.

“What? What is it?” Rodney asked.

“Ba’al was like Azazel, one of the Seven Princes of Hell,” Sam said.

“Assuming Princes of Hell are all one classification of demon, it would stand to reason that Ba’al would have yellow eyes too,” Dean said. “And if reports are that Qetesh has yellow eyes -”

“Then she, too, is a Prince of Hell,” Miko said grimly.

“We’ve dealt with a Prince of Hell before,” Sam pointed out.

“The Colt,” Rodney said. “Dean, turn the bus around. We need to get the -”

“It’s in the back, in my stuff.”

“Really?” Rodney started to rise. “Wait, why?”

“Because I’ve been trying to engineer new ammo for it,” Dean said. “It’s - it keeps me busy.”

“Repairing the Colt is your hobby?” Mitchell asked.

“That and playing the guitar,” Dean said.

“Fair enough.” Mitchell hopped up. “I’ll go get it.”

“How close are you to figuring out how to make new ammo for it?” Rodney asked.

“Not super close,” Dean said. “No one ever cleaned the inside of the thing out after using it, so I did what Miko taught me to do, took some swabs of the interior to see if I could figure out what made the bullets special, besides them being made of silver. I didn’t want to completely take it apart in case I broke it for good.”

Miko closed her laptop and set it aside. “You know what we should do? We should run it through a scanner, see how its inner workings differ from a standard Colt of the same model. Uh, what model is it?”

“1836 Colt Pietta Paterson Super Deluxe,” Dean said promptly.

Miko poked her head between the front seats. “Do you have the swabs you took?”

“They’re in the box with the Colt, sealed up tight, just how you showed me.”

Miko pressed a kiss to his cheek. Her easy affection would never not startle him, though he didn’t mind it. “Awesome. Rodney, Sam, let’s go look at the Colt!”

“Be careful with it,” Dean called after them, to which Sam responded,

“Yes, Miss Hannigan.”

Sam never said _Yes, Mom,_ with sarcasm. Mom wasn’t someone to make jokes about.

Dean cleared his throat. “Hey, uh, Rodney?”

Rodney paused. “What?”

“About earlier. I didn’t mean to make a crack about your -”

“I know. I was insensitive, too.” Rodney coughed, sounded uncomfortable.

There were certain places no one went, when it came to the team. No one talked about Sam and Dean’s mother’s death, or the time either of them were possessed by archangels fallen or otherwise, or their father’s death. No one talked about how Rodney had grown up half-scientist, half mad-wizard, and his sister had died in some kind of magical experiment gone wrong. No one talked about how Miko was affectionate and sweet with everyone and in love with no one after a spell cast by a wayward witch when she was still working as a civilian scientist. No one talked about how Mitchell and Lorne had been on a backup squad for Team O’Neill and been the only two from their squad to survive a nasty battle with a witch from the Grand Coven.

Before Dean could apologize further - living with Sam and Miko had softened his _no chick flick moments_ rule - Rodney was heading into the back, positing theories about how to repair the Colt.

It was just Dean and Lorne after that, Dean concentrating on the road, humming along to Metallica, and Lorne saying nothing while he read from one of the communal Kindles.

After Dean was done driving, he retreated into the back to huddle around The Colt with the others while Lorne took the wheel and Mitchell acted as his shotgun and navigator. Some people needed talking to, to keep them awake when they were driving in the middle of the night, especially after they’d come off of a long hunt.

Mitchell and Lorne traded stories about their time in the Academy, flight school, all the places they’d been posted and the things they’d flown. Lorne wasn’t a bad officer. He was very - by the book. Serious about his job and his duties, serious about being in the military. He was polite and efficient, got things done, but he didn’t have much of a sense of humor. He also never talked about his family. Dean had the sense that they hadn’t been pleased with him joining the military, for whatever reason.

“What have we got?” Dean asked, sliding in beside Sam.

“Not much on The Colt without our lab equipment,” Sam said, “although Miko’s pulled up the schematics for a standard version of the weapon so we know what differences to look for. Lorne, however, found some pretty hefty stuff for us - the specific devil’s traps for both Qetesh and Ba’al.”

Dean raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

Sam handed him one of the communal kindles. “Qetesh is also known as Ashtoreth, or Astaroth as listed in the Lesser Key of Solomon. Number twenty-nine. Ba’al, or Bael, is number one. I figure I have a steady enough hand to make some stencils so we can get the traps down easily, although it would probably be a good idea for all of us to memorize at least Qetesh’s trap.”

Dean nodded. “You got any paper?”

Rodney handed him a notepad and a pencil, and Dean set to copying the Qetesh devil trap over and over again, committing it to memory so he could recreate it on demand. Of course Lorne had hunted down the useful devil’s traps while he was riding shotgun with Dean. All that guy ever seemed to do was hunt, and when he wasn’t hunting he was doing chores like laundry and cleaning and weapons maintenance, and when he wasn’t doing those things he was updating his hunting journal. Which was a heck of a lot nicer than a lot of journals Dean had seen - fancy tooled leather cover, heavy good-quality paper, filled with meticulous diagrams and neatly-written essays on various creatures, spells, and types of magic.

Of course, where Dean and Sam had come from hunters - learned on Dad’s side, inherited on Mom’s - Lorne had come from the Men of Letters. His grandfather, one of the last full Men of Letters, had somehow arranged for Lorne to receive all of his journals, so he’d been training in lore and magic since he was twelve.

“So what’s the plan?” Dean asked. “Once we get there.”

“Sam and I have hacked the LVPD network,” Miko said. “We’ve got info on sites where bodies from the parties have been dumped, what they’ve been able to dig up on party locations, and also some theories on how to get invites. We’re trying to triangulate where her base of operations might be.”

“She’s a demon,” Dean said. “And a Prince of Hell. She doesn’t need a base of operations. She can just mind-whammy money and digs out of a follower. Plus she probably has some lower-ranked demons working for her. You said we had a picture of her?”

Sam turned his laptop around so Dean could see.

Qetesh’s human host - Jackson got very twitchy at the hunter tendency to use the phrase _meat suit_ and as a linguist was especially tetchy about words - was striking. She looked like a modern dominatrix Snow White - pale skin, straight black hair with a blonde streak, finely-drawn brows, a narrow nose, a wide mouth, and some kind of leather collar attached to a leather corset by crossed straps that looked extremely uncomfortable. Dean was pretty sure he would spot her in a crowd.

“We need to get three of us in there to set the trap and fight off any lesser demons,” Mitchell said, “and three people to hang back and do crowd control if needs be, handle any exorcisms.”

“Who’s going in and who’s staying back?” Sam asked.

That decision rested with Mitchell, as the senior military officer. Rodney was usually the one who got to pick which hunts they took, had the final say in questions of lore and tests to be run, but where there was combat, Mitchell was in charge. Any time they faced a demon, combat was going to happen.

Mitchell considered. “You stay back with Miko and Rodney. You’ve got firsthand experience with a Prince of Hell. Lorne and I will have Dean with us. Dean also has firsthand experience with a Prince of Hell, plus we have Lorne’s Men of Letters mojo on the front lines.”

Mitchell glanced at Rodney, and Rodney nodded. Rodney was a scientist, not a soldier, and while he was far more competent with a firearm than he had been when he’d first joined the team, he was usually quite content to let others be on the front line.

Dean understood that, didn’t judge it. Division of labor.

Though when push came to shove, Rodney threw himself into danger more readily than even he realized.

“Now,” Dean said, “how do we get invited to one of those parties?”

*

Qetesh had pretty simple rules for who got into her parties: beautiful people.

Dean had never told anyone this, but he had a pretty keen eye for beauty, regardless of gender. Sam assumed Dean’s type was Asian and busty where he could get it, pretty and busty otherwise.

The truth was, pretty much everyone on Dean’s team was good-looking, even Rodney, whose mouth was just fascinating and whose shoulders and chest were starting to firm up in all the right ways because he was making an effort to improve his fitness so he’d have better survival rates out in the field. Miko was downright adorable, though she tended to hide behind her big glasses, her child-like stature, and an oversized windbreaker that Dean suspected used to belong to a man. The windbreaker hid her figure completely.

Dean knew he and Sam were good-looking, had inherited well from both of their parents in the looks department (although Dean was prettier and he knew it; it had been a source of consternation as a teenager, when he was trying to be tough and a hunter, but it was a boon now). Cam was the all-American boy next door, blue eyes and high cheekbones and pretty with just enough of a square jawline to be ruggedly handsome. Lorne was good-looking in a wholesome, conservative kind of way. Like an altar boy all grown up, prim and proper, with bright blue eyes and dimples. Had his family been religious? It would explain their dissatisfaction with his military service. Some uber-religious types were also pacifists.

If Dean and his teammates wanted to get into one of Qetesh’s parties, they needed to get into the flashiest clubs on the Strip, and they needed to get noticed, which meant some level of aloofness but also debauchery (which would be awkward, with their teammates surveilling them the entire time). For Dean, dressing up usually meant throwing on a suit and being a fed or putting on his dress uniform. Clubbing had never really been his thing, and his civilian hunter gear was fine for the types of bars he preferred.

Dean knew how to make himself look good, though. Had had to make himself downright edible-looking on occasion, usually as bait for a hunt. So he dug out a pair of sinful jeans, the kind that women said made his ass look fantastic and a button-down shirt that brought out the color of his eyes (on Miko’s advice), and he shaved carefully. He combed his hair and smoothed it down, and he dabbed on some cologne that Miko had mixed that had some kind of mojo woven into it that would make him pretty irresistible (but not so much mojo that Qetesh or any of her minions would be suspicious).

They were renting a hotel room, all six of them, so they had space to spread out surveillance equipment and also so they had access to a full bathroom for people to get dressed up.

When Dean stepped out of the bathroom, Miko wolf-whistled and applauded, demanded that he give her a little turn on the catwalk, so Dean strutted across the carpet, posed and turned.

“Yes, very nice, Winchester senior,” Rodney said. “You look like excellent demon bait.”

Sam’s expression was sour. “And that’s why my prom dates always slept with him instead of me.”

Miko, who was sitting beside him on one of the beds, patted his hand. “It’s okay, Sam, you’re pretty too.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Not the point.”

“I can’t believe you’re still sore about that,” Dean said.

“She was my prom date!”

“She was her own person.”

“Yes, how conveniently feminist of you.” Sam shook his head and continued tapping away at his laptop.

Then Mitchell stepped into the room, and Dean had to do a double take, because - _damn._

He was wearing leather pants that clung to his thighs in the best way possible. The gun belt that rode low on one hip made Dean very aware of just how narrow and rolling Mitchell’s hips could be, with his easygoing stride. His t-shirt was plain and black but emphasized every shift of muscle in his chest and arms. Mitchell looked dangerous and delicious all in one. His laced-up black combat boots were both practical and sexy and Dean thought he finally understood the appeal of a man in uniform.

Perhaps a psychologist would say that the way his father had disciplined him in the same manner and style of a Marine drill sergeant had given him some authority issues, but - just _damn._

Mitchell paused in the doorway when he noticed how everyone was staring at him. “What? Is it too much?”

“No,” Miko said breathily, eyes wide behind her glasses. “Please, sir, may I have some more?”

“See,” Sam said, “I could totally understand why my prom date would have ditched me for him, but Cam would’ve at least turned down her advances.”

Mitchell looked confused. “So is this okay for a club or not?”

“It’s fine,” Miko said, beckoning him in. “We need to get the both of you fitted for comms.”

“Where’s Lorne?” Rodney asked. “We don’t have all day. I’ve run metrics and identified the best clubs on the Strip, but we need to decide which one to start in.”

“He was right behind me,” Mitchell said. “Do you have blueprints for the clubs? One where we can lure Qetesh into a private place, spring the especially-for-Qetesh devil’s trap would be ideal.” He crossed the room, and Rodney offered up his laptop.

“What are our options?” Dean asked. Miko handed him her laptop, and he scanned the list of clubs. “Hey, check this out. This place has midget wrestling and, get this, _little people hanging from the ceiling who fly across the room to deliver bottle service.”_

Sam looked alarmed. “What?”

“I’m not making this up,” Dean protested. “Or what about this place? _Girls dancing on tables. Girls dancing in glass boxes. Girls in bathtubs covered by flower petals.”_

“All night?” Miko made a face. “Their skin must get so pruney.”

“Here’s the problem - most of these clubs are open only on the weekends,” Dean said. “Most of them only has one weeknight it’s open. So unless we want to wait, we’re stuck with whatever is open tonight.”

“It’s Thursday,” Mitchell said, looking up from Rodney’s laptop. “What have we got?”

“Naturally, the most expensive option,” Dean said. Were Lorne present, he’d have been fretting about expenditures and reimbursements. He told Mitchell the name of the club, and Mitchell immediately set about queuing up blueprints on the laptop.

None of the clubs opened till nine at the earliest, which gave them a couple of hours to get all set up on comms (tiny earwigs that would rely on jawbone vibrations instead of actual vocalization, which would be inaudible in the din of the club), lay down some basic tracking and protection wards, charms, and spells, and otherwise be prepared to combat a Prince of Hell and her likely powerful demon minions.

“Dean, come look at these blueprints.” Mitchell beckoned, and Dean responded readily. “I’m thinking this VIP section right here. We stake it out. One of us always holds it. We lure Qetesh there.”

Dean nodded. “Looks good to me.”

“What if she doesn’t show up in person?” Lorne asked. “What if she sends her minions to recruit? After all, her parties never take place in legit venues.”

“If she doesn’t show up in person, we go to her party with whichever minion picks us, and one or two of us distract her while the third sets a trap, and we lure her into it,” Rodney said.

“That’s assuming one or more of us will strike her fancy,” Lorne said.

“Well, we _are_ adorable,” Dean said, and then he realized. Lorne was standing in just inside the door. “When did you get back?”

“Just now.”

“Jeez. Don’t be such a ninja. Get over here, check out the club blueprints.” Dean beckoned.

“What are you wearing?” Miko asked.

Lorne was wearing an unseasonably warm, long dark duster. “I didn’t want to call undue attention to myself before we were at go time.”

“As opposed to calling attention to yourself now by looking like a creepy flasher or another school shooter,” Dean said.

“Show us your outfit,” Miko said. “We need to make sure it’s mission-appropriate.”

Lorne’s military-short hair had the effect of making him look boyish. It was neat every day no matter what, and part of that was definitely because it was short. He’d done something to it to make it look darker, shinier, a little slicker. He was perfectly clean-shaven.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes,” Miko said, and added for good measure, “Right, Cam?”

Mitchell nodded. “Yeah. You took an awfully long time with that sales clerk. Show us the goods.”

Lorne’s obedience to the chain of command was practically reflexive. He nodded, the _yes, sir_ unspoken, and shrugged off the coat.

“Is this all right?”

If Mitchell looked like danger and sex on legs (totally opposite of his usual charming down-home Southern self), Lorne looked like innocence personified, the boy next door all grown up and ready to go out and set off some cherry bombs. Lorne was wearing a white v-necked shirt made of some soft ribbed material, blue jeans that clung to his thighs in all the right ways and were rolled up at the cuffs, and dark boots.

If he’d had a black leather jacket, he’d have looked like a 1950’s rebel without a cause, but as it was, with his hesitant expression, he looked - not pretty enough for jailbait. But exuding the kind of innocent eagerness that made a guy look twice at someone who might be jailbait.

Oh, but Dean was going to hell.

Mitchell looked downright startled.

Lorne said, “The salesclerk said it was a little too old-fashioned, that people might look at me sideways, but my boots are sensible and I have good range of motion for combat in these clothes, and -”

“You look fine, Captain,” Mitchell said, voice husky. Then he coughed, shook himself out. “Just fine for a club.”

“I’m just there as backup anyway,” Lorne said. “Unfortunately the burden of luring Qetesh falls on you and Dean.”

Dean recovered before anyone noticed that he’d had to pick his jaw up off the floor. “It’s a burden I bear gladly. Come check out the club’s floorplans, see if you can think of a better spot for an ambush than the one Mitchell and I picked.”

Lorne nodded and crossed the room, all hesitation gone.

Dean couldn’t help but look at Lorne again and again out of the corner of his eye. Since when had Lorne looked like _that?_ Since always, but -

Mitchell was looking at Lorne again and again, too.

Dean wouldn’t say anything about it. Wouldn’t ask, so Mitchell wouldn’t have to tell.

*

Dean avoided clubs because, as a general rule, Dean hated people. He didn’t much like crowds, and he didn’t like noise and parties. It was easier to pick up a girl when he could make eye contact, talk, be heard and at least make an attempt to listen. But if he was going out for a drink, it was to unwind, and talking to strangers wasn’t unwinding. Mitchell, Dean, and Lorne approached the entrance to the club, and Dean scanned the line behind the velvet rope. Beautiful people in their brightest, best, and sexiest outfits were crowded up close together, already talking and flirting, some of the girls half-dancing to the music spilling out the club doors.

The two men guarding the rope looked like they could give Teal’c a run for his money.

It was Mitchell who strode right up to them. He dipped a hand into one of his pockets, came up with a wad of cash in a shiny money clip, and slung an arm around Lorne’s shoulders.

“Gentlemen,” Mitchell said, “buddy boy here is about to ship out on his third tour to parts unknown, where the booze is weak and the women are behind veils. He’s from a fine, upstanding, god-fearing family, so if he kicks the bucket, there will be no seventy-two virgins waiting for him. I’m hoping he’ll have something better than seventy-two virgins waiting for him tonight.”

Lorne blinked wide blue eyes up at the bouncers. “Sir,” he said to Mitchell in his most earnest, meek tone, “you really don’t have to -”

“Son,” Mitchell said, with all the condescension Dean knew too well from senior field grade officers, “you don’t want to die a virgin, do you?”

The bouncers raised their eyebrows.

Lorne blushed fetchingly. “Mostly I just don’t want to die.”

Mitchell smirked, peeled several large bills off his money clip, and held them out. “What d’you say, fellas? Serve your country.”

“Really, sir,” Lorne protested, even as one of the bouncers unhooked the velvet rope, “I’ve already survived two tours. I’m sure I can survive -”

“Survive the dance floor.” Mitchell caught Lorne’s wrist, held his hand out so the other bouncer could put a stamp on it.

Dean accepted a stamp - invisible to the naked eye but visible under UV light - and followed Lorne and Mitchell into the club.

The hallway was dark, short, barely gave Dean a chance to let his eyes adjust before they were standing on the edge of a massive dancefloor. Laser lights spun madly overhead in a startling array of patterns, geometric and floral and astronomical, turning and shifting, forming and re-forming. A DJ high on a platform on the far end of the room was standing between two turntables, headphones on, bobbing to his own beat while he waved one arm above his head and encouraged the crowd to go insane.

Bars lined both sides of the dance floor, marked by running neon lights and bartenders who looked like they were Hollywood starlets and pretty boys just playing at serving drinks for the night. Waitresses in slinky little black dresses wove through tables on an upper floor, trays held high, hips swaying as they made impressive speed in their stiletto heels.

“Where to?” Dean whispered.

Mitchell’s response was almost inaudible as they skirted around the edge of the dance floor.

“Up to the lounge area,” Mitchell said. “Stake out a spot, get some starting drinks.”

Dean nodded.

“Comm check,” Rodney said.

“Roger that,” Mitchell murmured.

Miko and Sam chimed in, and everyone made sure they could hear everyone else.

By the time comm checks were done, they were up on the third floor, which was about a dozen low tables surrounded by low, circular, plush leather couches.

Dean slid up beside Mitchell while Mitchell gave Lorne the go-ahead to pick the most strategic table - one that had line of sight to all entrances and exits and was close to the secluded spot where they could lay down some devil’s traps.

“Remind me again why we’re not just piping an exorcism into the sound system?” Dean murmured to Mitchell.

“That would only take down the black-eyed minions and you know it,” Sam said.

Lorne sat down very primly on one of the circular couches, back to the wall - or as close to it as he could get, in a space like this. Mitchell sprawled next to him, signaled a waitress with a wink and a grin and a lift of his chin.

Dean sat beside Lorne. “Well-played, by the way. The whole _don’t want to die a virgin_ schtick probably hasn’t worked since Korea.”

“Don’t intend to die any time soon,” Lorne said.

Dean blinked at him. “Wait, you’re really a virgin?”

Lorne nodded, scanning their surroundings.

It was Mitchell’s turn to frown. “But - you grew up on a hippie commune. Free love and all that.”

“And I saw the unplanned results of free love,” Lorne said. “Creating a string of unwanted dependents is an inefficient use of military resources.”

“There’s these things called condoms,” Dean said, though he was still stuck on the part where Lorne had grown up on a free love hippie commune.

“Not a hundred percent effective, especially if not stored properly,” Lorne said. He kept scanning their surroundings. “Also in the heat of the moment, people don’t think so straight, as I understand it.”

Dean’s next question was _Are you asexual?_ But he was pretty sure that violated DADT.

Mitchell cleared his throat. “Oh. Well. I’m sorry if I offended you -”

“I’m not embarrassed by my decision to be physically responsible,” Lorne said primly, “and it’s for the good of the mission.”

Was there a chance Lorne was a robot? Because no way was it natural, for Lorne to never - with another person. Did that mean he never - for himself?

Nope. Straying into dangerous and unprofessional mental territory. Lorne was a fine airman and officer.

A lovely redheaded waitress sashayed over to them, flutes of champagne on her tray. “On the house,” she said, bending over and setting the flutes on the table and offering all three men a generous view of her cleavage. “We love our servicemen.” She winked at Mitchell as she straightened up.

“Thank you kindly,” Mitchell drawled. He nudged Lorne. “Drink up. Celebrate your freedom. Get some liquid courage.”

“My name’s Mimi if you need anything,” the waitress said, and she tucked her tray against her side before she turned and walked away.

She looked great walking away.

Lorne picked up the champagne, pretended to sip some.

Mitchell proposed a toast, for working for The Man, for fighting for The Man, and for helping the Good Guys win. They clinked glasses, and then Mitchell caught Dean’s eye. It was time to get the party started.

“Dean,” Mitchell said, “why don’t you see if you can’t find some lovely ladies who are feeling particularly patriotic tonight? We want to give our brother-in-arms a good sendoff.”

Dean nodded, stood up. “What’s your flavor, Lorne? Blonde, brunette, redhead?”

Once again, Lorne was wearing his alarmingly earnest expression. “Um...yes?”

Mitchell laughed. “Go forth and conquer, Marine.”

Dean nodded again and headed for the stairs.

Since he wasn’t much of a dancer, he stuck to the edges of the dance floor, skirting around and finally heading for the bar. One thing he could do was chat up a lady while standing at a bar. He caught a bartender’s eye - pretty dark-skinned brunette, Latina, perhaps? - and nodded to her, and then he settled back against the bar to scan the dancers. Damn, if Lorne was a virgin, did he even know what he liked?

He managed to make eye contact with a few attractive women, garnered some smiles and appreciative once-overs and double takes, but no one came over to talk to him before someone tapped his shoulder, and he turned.

“What can I do you for, sailor?” the bartender drawled.

Dean considered. Then he reached into his pocket and drew out his money clip, handed over one of those black credit cards that looked like they belonged to gazillionaires - or someone on a covert government team with Lorne and his insane money management skills.

“How about two dozen shots of your top-shelf Jim, Jack, and Jose, and send it on upstairs, plus a dozen of the prettiest ladies you know? For the nice young Airman who’s looking to lose his V-card.”

The bartender’s eyes widened ever so slightly when she took in the card, but then she nodded. “Anything for you boys. We’re grateful for all you do.”

Dean managed not to wince when she said that. He hated when people came up to him and thanked him for his service if he happened to be hanging around in his uniform. Instead he nodded, smiled, and turned to head back up the stairs. He made it halfway there when two women stepped off the dancefloor. They were wearing matching white dresses with plunging necklines and skirts so short that one wrong step would result in some X-rated views. They both pressed themselves to his sides.

“I hear you’re a sailor,” the blonde one said.

“Marine, actually,” Dean said.

The brunette looked him up and down. “You certainly look lean and mean.” She ran a hand up his arm meaningfully.

Dean shrugged. “I work out.”

“I hear you have friends,” the brunette said.

“That I do.”

The two women exchanged smiles. “We have friends.”

By the time Dean made it back up the stairs, he did indeed have a dozen of the prettiest women in the club following along with him.

Mimi the waitress and another waitress were setting shots down on the table in front of Lorne and Mitchell. Mitchell was still sprawled on the couch, posture easy and relaxed, and he looked like he was totally used to having three women all over him. There were two women pressed up against his sides and a third sitting on his lap. She was toying with his hair and practically rubbing her breasts against his chest.

Two women detached themselves from Dean’s retinue and approached Lorne, who was wide-eyed and startled.

“You look like a virgin,” said the one with the dark skin and gleaming dark eyes and legs that went on for miles. She leaned in. “Do you know what you like?”

“Ah, no,” Lorne said, blushing. “I mean - I never really had time. You know - going to college, learning to be a pilot and all.” He started hyperventilating when the second woman - creamy skin, silky red-blonde hair - climbed into his lap, straddling him, and looked straight into his eyes.

“How about you have a taste and see what your flavor is,” she said, and kissed him.

It was like out of that Johnny Depp movie _Don Juan,_ where young Don Juan had a line of girls waiting for him to dole out kisses, payment for which was a single flower laid at his feet.

For Lorne there was no flowers. Just women.

For a guy who was a virgin, Lorne certainly didn’t kiss like one, if the way the women were moaning into his mouth was any indication. After that first kiss, he sat up straighter, dared to reach out and touch the women, bury his hands in their hair, rub their backs, grip their hips. He never got handsy, but he seemed to understand that a well-placed caress made the kissing experience that much better.

Cam had four women all over him at this point, and Dean had a couple of ladies to himself, but he was doing his best to keep an eye out for Qetesh or anyone who seemed like they might be a demon.

Lorne had two women on his lap. They were taking turns leaning in and kissing him. _Teach him that thing with your tongue. There, see? He learns fast. What about that other thing with your teeth? Oooh, look, he likes that._

If Dean weren’t on a mission getting ready to face down a Prince of Hell, he’d be having the time of his life, with an armful of blonde and a handful of brunette and another redhead in arm’s reach.

After everyone had consumed several rounds of shots, it was time to hit the dancefloor, or so Mitchell declared.

The women cheered and rose up, already shimmying their hips and catching the beat from the dance floor two floors down. Cam held his arms out, and immediately women plastered themselves to his sides. Dean slung an arm around the nearest woman’s waist. The rest of the women were gathered around Lorne, herding him toward the stairs.

Two men in sleek dark suits appeared at the top of the stairs, blocking their path.

Both were wearing sunglasses and looked like a pair of Mob enforcers.

One of them lowered his glasses, leered at the women.

“Ladies,” he said, and for one brief second his eyes flared demon-black. “Gentlemen. You are by far the most outstanding-looking people in this club. You are destined for much greater pleasure than what’s to be had here. How would you like to join a much more exclusive party?”

The women cheered.

Mitchell cheered. Dean cheered a beat too late. Lorne looked like a deer in headlights, but then one of them women yanked him in for a kiss and, judging by his muffled yelp, copped a feel.

“C’mon, Virgin Sacrifice,” she said. “It’ll be fun.”

The second man raised his eyebrows. “Virgin sacrifice?”

Lorne blushed brightly.

The woman laughed. “He’s sacrificing his virginity tonight.”

“Well, then,” the man said, “we’ve got the perfect place. It’s got very large, very comfortable beds.”

“Lead on, MacDuff,” Mitchell said.

The demon looked confused.

“It’s _Lay on, MacDuff,”_ Sam muttered in Dean’s ear, and holy crap.

He’d totally forgotten. Miko, Rodney, and Sam had heard _everything_ that had gone on. Dean hadn’t been distracted by any of Mitchell’s dirty talk, which meant someone - probably poor Miko - had filtered out the chatter so they wouldn’t be distracted.

Dean managed to swing by the bar and grab his credit card before he followed the two demons out to a massive stretch limo, and then they were speeding down the Strip.

Toward the Luxor.

Of course. Qetesh. The Eye of Ra Without Equal.

Instead of parking out front and letting the entire drunken horde spill out of the limo and across the lobby, the limo went to an underground parking lot and dropped everyone at the doors of a massive service elevator.

One of the demons used a key card to get the doors to open, and again to select the button for the penthouse.

Dance music spilled through the speakers as soon as the elevator started to rise.

Mitchell was in the middle of the elevator while women twined all around him. Dean let himself get caught up in a brunette sandwich while Lorne did his best to hang onto a woman who was dancing up and down him like he was a stripper pole.

The elevator doors opened, and they spilled onto a dancefloor that was playing the same music.

Where the club had been loud and gaudy, this place was - a veritable eyesore. Gold everywhere - Dean suspected it was real, because a demon posing as an Egyptian goddess. Crystal chandeliers. A champagne fountain. Bottles of expensive booze on every flat surface. Pills and powder and what looked like sheets of stickers on every other flat surface. Bodies writhing on the dancefloor, like one massive pulsing organism.

Above it all, sitting on a golden throne like for a pharaoh, was the woman from the surveillance photo, Qetesh herself.

Instead of wearing black leather, she was wearing some kind of tan leather dress that had all kinds of cutouts so her breasts were barely covered and most of her belly was bare.

She gazed down at the revels with an expression of mingled satisfaction, boredom, and disdain.

The two demons plucked Lorne out of the midst of the club women and practically frog-marched him up to the throne. Mitchell and Dean followed. Mitchell looked pleased and amused. Dean hoped his expression was something other than _Oh no it’s a Prince of Hell._

“What have you brought me?”

She had a British accent, of all things. Had her host been British, or was it some kind of affectation?

“A virgin sacrifice, my queen,” one of the demons said.

Qetesh reached out, caught Lorne’s chin, forced his head up so she could examine him.

“A virgin? At your age?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lorne said, still disturbingly wide-eyed and earnest for a guy who’d described his own virginity in terms of military efficiency and had also kissed at least a dozen women so far that night.

“Well,” Qetesh said, and now she looked very amused indeed, “let me relieve you of your burden, shall I?” She flicked her glance over Mitchell and said to the demons, “Him too.”

She didn’t even look at Dean.

Then she rose from her throne and descended the steps of her dais. She offered her right arm to Lorne, who immediately moved to accompany her. Mitchell moved to take her left arm, and together they escorted her down the stairs and onto the dance floor.

On any other night, with any other woman, Dean would have been horribly offended and taken to a quiet corner to complain to Sam and nurse his ego, but this was the night they were hunting a Prince of Hell, another yellow-eyed demon.

He melted into the shadows at the edge of the crowd.

“Where’s the nearest space to lay the trap?” Dean murmured.

“Finally found the schematics for the penthouse suite,” Rodney said. “Best guess is Qetesh will take Lorne and Mitchell to the private master bedroom at the very back so she can, er, you know, with Lorne.”

“Lorne’s not actually going to do it, is he?” Sam asked.

“That’s up to him,” Rodney said, and he sounded very uncomfortable.

“Where’s the private master bedroom?” Dean asked.

Miko made a few thoughtful humming noises. “Describe your surroundings?”

Dean scooped a drink off a tray as a waiter dressed like an Ancient Egyptian slave drifted past, brought it to his lips so no one would see his mouth moving. He described the dance floor, the position of the elevator and what doors and windows he could see. Between Miko, Sam, and Rodney, they figured out where in the suite he was and oriented him toward the private master bedroom.

It was on the far side of the dance floor, and it was guarded by no less than four men. Dean was sure all of them were demons.

Dean ducked into the nearest restroom, shed his button-down shirt. Beneath it he had a black t-shirt, which would make him that much less visible in the dark. Then he returned to the dancefloor, demon-slaying knife in hand. He wasn’t sure what mojo Miko and Lorne had put on it, but it hadn’t set off any of the metal detectors they’d walked through.

John Winchester had taught Dean how to kill monsters.

The United States Marine Corps had taught Dean how to kill men.

There were innocent men inside those demons guarding the door. They could have already been previously mortally wounded, kept alive only by demonic power alone. Dean had no way of knowing. He did know, however, how to kill them so they wouldn’t cry out. He knew to yank them off balance, below most people’s line of sight so no one would notice the flare of light in their bodies as the demon’s sputtered out and faded to nothingness. He knew how to do it quickly.

After that it was pretty easy to find four stoned guys and slip them twenties, get them to stand in the same spots the guards had, get them to wear the guards’ bloodstained jackets.

Dean slipped into the master bedroom. It was dimly lit with candles. The bed was the size of a small country, all thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets. Bottles of wine and champagne were scattered across tables and chairs. The floor was littered with expensive-looking scraps of satin and silk. Discarded lingerie.

Dean really hoped he wouldn’t find any discarded condoms - though chances were a demon wouldn’t demand them of her partners - and kicked aside some of the lingerie till he had a space big enough to lay down the devil’s trap.

And lay it down he did, with a permanent marker and the strength of his own memory.

When it was done, he tucked the marker away and went to the door, listened.

“Do you have a twenty on Lorne and Mitchell?” he asked.

“On their way to you,” Miko sing-songed, and Dean hurriedly scooted some of the pieces of lingerie back into place to obscure the trap, then ducked into the closet.

He pulled the doors to, left them open a crack so he could still see the room.

The bedroom door opened, and Lorne stumbled into the room. He nearly tripped on a piece of flimsy silk.

“Ma’am, I can kiss all night, I’ve got good practice at kissing,” Lorne said, “but anything else -”

Qetesh hauled Mitchell in for a kiss that was all roaming hands and rocking bodies and open mouths. Then she pushed him toward the bed. “Show your friend how it’s done.”

Mitchell nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed, peeled off his shirt.

It was a damn good thing he didn’t have his anti-possession tattoo on his chest like Sam and Dean did.

Lorne hovered uncertainly beside the bed.

Qetesh stalked toward Mitchell, every inch a predator, and Dean felt his skin crawl. How had Mitchell and Lorne been able to kiss her, been able to stand her touching them?

Qetesh froze.

“What - what is this?” Her eyes flashed yellow. “A devil’s trap? You’re _hunters.”_

“That we are.” Mitchell was on his feet immediately, and holy cannoli, where had he been hiding that gun?

Qetesh spun and snarled at Lorne.

The entire room shook, but it was to no avail. A Prince of Hell could break out of a generic devil’s trap. No was Qetesh breaking out of this one.

Lorne had a gun aimed at her as well.

“Don’t hurt me,” Qetesh said, eyes wide and pleading, though her tone was mocking.

“Give me one good reason not to,” Dean said, stepping out of the closet.

Qetesh spun turned. “Oh. Of course. _You._ Should’ve known three lads as fetching as yourselves were a trap. This host is still alive. She’s never been injured, never been harmed. You kill me, and you kill her. Wouldn’t want to do that, would you?”

“This is war,” Dean said, “and wars have collateral damage.”

“I know it’s war,” Qetesh said, and there it was, the unholy chorus of voices and sounds that was a single demon voice. “Hell is empty, and we have come to lay waste to this wretched plane. We are crashing upon your shores in an unending wave. We are Legion, we are -”

Dean began to recite, _“Exorcizamus te -”_

The floor shook again, and this time Dean heard it _crack._

Qetesh stepped toward him - and out of the boundaries of the broken trap. “Took you long enough.”

Dean spun around.

The man who stood in the doorway was tall, golden-skinned, with military-short black hair and a goatee. He was handsome, dark-eyed.

“Apologies, My Queen.”

Ba’al Hadad, the other Prince of Hell.

“It seems you and I have both encountered minor infestations of pesky hunters,” he said. His accent was - not Australian. Kiwi? South African? Something else British-adjacent?

Dean’s mind spun. Wasn’t Team O’Neill supposed to be on Ba’al’s tail?

“What’s going on?” Rodney demanded.

“Ba’al,” Dean said, trying to sound calm and confident.

The corner of Ba’al’s mouth curved up in a smile. “You’re well-informed, little hunters that you are, same as the ones pestering me. Perhaps we should take this little party elsewhere.” He lifted a hand, and Dean was thrown off his feet.

He hit the wall, and his world went dark.

He came to a few seconds - minutes? - later as he was being carried down a cement hallway. The lights flickered overhead. Basement of the hotel, judging by the Luxor logo on a wheeled laundry cart he passed. Were the lights flickering because fluorescent lights in basements always flickered in horror movies or because he was in the presence of a demon?

Demons, he remembered.

Qetesh. Ba’al.

Dean’s earwig was gone. He was bouncing along, slung over someone’s shoulder in a fireman’s hold, a bony shoulder digging into his solar plexus and making it hard to breathe.

He wriggled.

The grip on his legs was implacable, inhuman.

A demon had its hands on him.

The demon turned, pushed open a door. Slung Dean down and into a chair. Was on him, pressing him in place while another demon shackled him to the chair and floor.

O’Neill was hanging from the ceiling by chains, head bowed, blood dripping down his face and torso. Unmoving. Dead or alive?

Jackson was shackled to a chair nearby. He looked dazed, exhausted. His glasses were missing, one eye was swollen shut. There was no sign of Carter, Jonas, Teal’c, Fraiser, or Teldy. The demon who’d brought Dean to the basement looked like another generic Mob enforcer. Two more arrived, one with an unconscious Mitchell, the other with an unconscious Lorne.

Both of them were shackled into chairs, and then the demon minions departed.

Dean rattled his chains. “Hey, wake up! Lorne, Mitchell!”

Jackson blinked blearily. “Winchester. Dean. That you?”

“Jackson.” Dean rattled his chains again. “What’s going on?”

“Trap.” Jackson was slurring. If he didn’t look beaten half to death, Dean would have thought he was drunk. “Ba’al an’ Qetesh’re lookin’ to take over Hell. Wanted t’prove to competitors they have what it takes. Wanted t’take out the hunters who took out Ra, Apophis, an’ Amaunet.”

Amaunet, the demon who’d possessed Jackson’s wife. Teal’c had killed her - and her host.

“O’Neill?” Dean asked.

Jackson sucked in a hitching breath. “Still alive. Barely.”

O’Neill had history with Ba’al. It was one of those places no one went with Team O’Neill.

Lorne came awake with a sudden gasp.

“Lorne,” Jackson said, straining to catch Lorne’s eye.

Lorne’s gaze was empty.

“Lorne,” Jackson said again.

Still no response.

 _“Evan Lorne,”_ Jackson said, and lucidity snapped into Lorne’s gaze.

“Jackson?”

“It’s Jack,” Jackson said, and it took a moment to remember that he meant O’Neill. “You have to save him.”

Lorne blinked. “Are you asking me to -?”

“Yes,” Jackson said.

To what? Dean wondered.

Lorne nodded. “I will.”

Before Dean could ask what Lorne’s plan was, if he was still in contact with the rest of the team, Qetesh and Ba’al swept into the room. Qetesh was wearing black leather pants and a black tank top. She looked human and casual - and utterly dangerous. Ba’al wore jeans and a t-shirt, but his every motion was filled with predatory grace.

“The Winchesters are their own kind of legend, where we come from,” Ba’al said. “From persistent mother Mary to valiant father John to charming soldier Dean and heroic scholar Sam. I suppose we ought not to be surprised that they shared their knowledge. But that knowledge ends here, with all of you and your team.” He prowled along the line of chairs. “O’Neill hasn’t been much help, and neither has little Danny Boy. What about you, Dean? Where’s your gangly baby brother? Or the rest of your friends?”

“I hope they’re as pretty as the friends you brought,” Qetesh said. She reached out, caressed Mitchell’s face.

He spat at her.

She backhanded him.

Dean winced at the force of the blow, wasn’t surprised when Mitchell had a split lip from it.

Qetesh reached out, fisted a hand in Lorne’s hair. “What of you, my precious little virgin sacrifice? What are you willing to tell me?”

“Nothing.”

“That earnest sweetness wasn’t all an act, was it?” Qetesh crooned. “You’re not as strong as the others. I can feel it, ethereal fragility under your human skin. I’m sure I can start small and I’ll have you singing like the delicate little songbird you are. That’s what they call you, isn’t it?”

“They call us flyboys, actually,” Mitchell said, with a measure of bravado Dean had previously only known O’Neill to have in the face of a Prince of Hell.

“Flyboys,” Qetesh murmured, stroking down the side of Lorne’s face. “I like it. So, flyboy. Sing.”

She drove her thumb into his left eye.

Lorne _screamed._

O’Neill jerked awake.

Mitchell roared and strained against his chains. Daniel was shouting at a mile a minute, begging Qetesh to let him go, he was new, he didn’t know anything.

Dean couldn’t speak, couldn’t even breathe.

Blood poured down Lorne’s face.

Qetesh laughed and grabbed his head, wrenched his head back, laughed again when he choked on the blood.

Ba’al chortled.

“Tell me what I want to know,” Qetesh said, “or I rip out the other one.”

Lorne moaned softly.

Qetesh leaned in. “What was that, my pretty flyboy?”

Lorne’s lips were moving, but his chest heaving, but no words came out.

“A bit louder, if you please,” Qetesh said, digging her nails into his scalp hard enough to draw blood.

“I abjure you,” Lorne whispered.

Ba’al huffed. “What?”

“I abjure you,” Lorne said again, a little louder, his words slurred from the blood in his mouth.

But Qetesh looked a little frightened.

Lorne said, “By the blood of my untouched body -”

Ba’al smoked out, left his host a lifeless heap on the floor.

Qetesh opened her mouth to scream.

Lorne shouted, _“I abjure you!”_ He spat in her face.

She shrieked when the blood hit her skin, and then lightning was crackling overhead and the demon was pouring out of her eyes and ears and nose and mouth and it was going back to Hell.

Dean, Mitchell, and Jackson watched until the portal winked out of existence, till they were sure the demon was gone.

Lorne was slumped over, unconscious, blood dripping to the floor.

On the floor, Qetesh’s host was weeping.

*

“You don’t have to do this,” Dean said. He stood just outside the church with Sam.

“It’s not going to kill me,” Sam said. “It’s not Vala’s fault that she was possessed by a demon. It’s not her fault Qetesh keeps coming back for her. It’s _our_ fault for failing to protect Vala after we freed her initially.”

After they’d freed her initially - two nights ago - everyone had been more concerned with getting O’Neill, Lorne, and Jackson the medical attention they needed.

No one had thought to give her an anti-possession charm. No one had thought to do much more than try to interview her. Carter and Rodney were fascinated, because Vala said before she’d been possessed she’d lived at the edge of the Hittite Empire in what was now Armenia. She was thousands of years old.

Lorne, laid up in a cot with Doc Fraiser fussing over him (and O’Neill and Jackson) was especially concerned about Vala’s welfare. When he’d learned that she’d been re-possessed, he’d told Miko to search through Bunker for a special exorcism ritual designed by a Father Max Thompson that could cure a demon.

Jackson, Carter, and Miko had immediately asked Janet to check him, because he was delirious.

But Vala was shackled in the basement of a church, and Qetesh had refused to answer any questions about herself or Ba’al. They had nothing to lose. So they read the rite and watched the recording, and Sam was going to do it.

Of all of them, he’d been the most religious growing up.

Dean hated standing next to Lorne’s cot and staring at his pale face, at the bandage covering half of his head and, conspicuously, the space where his left eye used to be. When he’d told Lorne they were going to try to cure Vala, Lorne had lit up, almost like the sweet earnest virginal airman from their mission pretext, so Dean had thrown his lot in with Sam, Jackson, and Jonas.

Cure Vala. Destroy Qetesh forever.

Two birds. One stone.

“I know I don’t have to do this,” Sam said. “I want to.”

Nothing bad had happened to Father Thompson, but then he hadn’t been trying to cure a Prince of Hell.

Sam glanced at the rest of the two teams and also Beckett, who’d been flown out specially to oversee Sam’s health and assist.

Then he went into the church, and he went into the confessional booth, and they waited.

Beckett kept fidgeting with the syringes he’d brought, eight plus a spare. Sam had to purify his blood through confession, then dose Qetesh with his purified blood once an hour for eight hours and, after the last dose, perform a specialized exorcism.

Qetesh was furious. She screamed and writhed against the chains, trying to bite Sam, trying to wreck Vala’s body. She shouted about all the things she’d done, all the things she and Ba’al would do once she got free.

All the things she wished she’d been able to do to Lorne.

Mitchell stood up, walked out.

Dean followed him.

They climbed into the Impala together, drove back to the hospital where Jackson, O’Neill, and Lorne were under Fraiser’s watchful eye.

Dean wanted to just _see_ Lorne, know he was all right. He and Mitchell would head back before the final dose, see this through. Sam had the best hunters in the world at his back. He’d be fine. He -

Dean would head back to Sam’s side as soon as he was done checking on the rest of his team.

“My debt is paid,” Lorne was saying quietly to Jackson as Dean and Mitchell stepped into their hospital room.

O’Neill was still sleeping, heavily sedated. He’d been tortured.

“Yes, it is,” Jackson said, and was going to say more, but then he noticed Dean and Mitchell.

“Hey,” Lorne said, smiling wanly up at Dean. “Demon curing is so mundane that you’re here with us instead?”

“Wanted to make sure you were obeying Doc Fraiser,” Dean said.

“Like you’re one to talk,” Fraiser said, bustling past him. She went to check on O’Neill.

“Do you need anything?” Dean asked. “Coffee, laptop, file in your cake?”

“None of those things,” Fraiser said briskly, moving to check on Jackson.

“My sketch journal wouldn’t be amiss, would it?” Lorne asked.

Dean blinked. “Sketch journal?”

Lorne nodded. “Yeah. It should be in my pack. With my art pencils.”

Dean thought of the meticulous diagrams in Lorne’s hunting journal and wondered what he sketched. “Doc?”

“Don’t strain your eyes.” Fraiser wagged a finger at Lorne.”

“You mean ‘eye’,” he corrected absently, and everyone within hearing winced.

“I’ll go get your art stuff,” Dean said and ducked out of the room. Lorne’s pack would be on the bus with the rest of his personal belongings. The sketchbook was easy to find, tucked into the same pocket as the laptop and, as promised, a case full of fancy art pencils. Dean really wanted to flip through the sketchbook and see what was in there, but he respected his teammates’ privacy.

When he got back to the room, Jackson was sleep, Fraiser was nowhere to be seen, and Mitchell was sitting beside Lorne on his bed, a little too close for military proprietary between an officer and his subordinate, let alone two men.

“Will you stay?” Mitchell asked.

“I’m injured. Can’t pilot anymore. Dishonorable discharge.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Should I?”

Mitchell said, “Please.”

Dean backed up several steps, cleared his throat loudly.

Mitchell was standing politely beside Lorne’s bed when Dean stepped into the room.

“Found it. I gotta say, for a virgin you draw an awful lot of naked chicks, and really anatomically accurately.” He held out the sketchbook.

“And that’s how I know you didn’t open it,” Lorne said. He flashed Dean a grateful smile.

Was it Dean’s imagination, or did Mitchell look - relieved?

*

Sam was right. Curing a demon wouldn’t hurt him at all.

The further along he got, the more human Qetesh became, the more pained she was at what she had done.

She answered Carter’s questions willingly, about the status of Hell, demon hierarchies, demon lore, Ba’al’s plans.

Before her soul had been tortured into a demon, Qetesh had been a simple girl who’d gathered and hunted and sometimes herded and danced under something she called a _singing tree._ There was nothing like it here, possibly not anywhere, not anymore, because the groves had been destroyed by the other demons and gods.

Because Vala still had a soul, still had an intact body, Qetesh wouldn’t stay. She would move on.

Dean had never seen a spirit ascend to Heaven before.

It was - bright. Peaceful.

Vala was left weeping once more.

*

The Air Force let Vala go with a thousand dollars to her name and an offer for a job, but she was determined to get by on her own. She’d done so before, she would do so again.

The Air Force recalled Team O’Neill back to Central Command in Colorado Springs and offered for Lorne to go with them to finish healing. As predicted, he was given a medical discharge. He opted to finish his convalescence with his family.

But he did return to the team.

In the weeks that followed, Dean didn’t know what to make of this new Lorne, with the dapper suit and the fancy eye patches (that gave way to a disturbingly realistic glass eye), this new Lorne who was sarcastic and witty but a little - off, with his three-piece suits and bowties and pocket watch and the way he tended to call Kevin, their new intern, _Sport._

It was like he was from another era, or something, one too wholesome for the hunt.

But Kevin liked him, and he made good Vietnamese food for Kevin, and Kevin was teaching Sam to play the cello, and maybe things weren’t going back to normal (could never go back to normal), but at least they were sorting themselves out.

Dean looked the other way when Mitchell gave Lorne handknitted gloves plus a matching hat and scarf for Christmas,  and he looked the other way when Lorne give Mitchell the flash for a custom-designed warding tattoo in return.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song Demons by Imagine Dragons.
> 
> Written for the Shoobie Monster Fest Angels & Demons day.


End file.
